


Who needs family?

by MagnusSybella



Category: Legend Series - Marie Lu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 11:48:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10990308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagnusSybella/pseuds/MagnusSybella
Summary: Who actually needs a family? Certainly not Tess. As far as she is concerned Thomas, her brother is gone and this new Thomas who has a gun pointed at her is not her brother. Or another tragic backstory that no one really needs





	Who needs family?

She watched from the shadows as he was taken away. That girl, Tess knew that she was no good. She had been telling Day just that the night before; the tears were streaming down her face. Now she was alone, again. She hadn’t felt this alone since Thomas went to his trial.

Some rich family had seen him and thought that one day his immaculate discipline would make him a good soldier to contribute to the cause. She remembered that day when she was young and playing with her brother who was only seven years older than her at the time, but could have passed for seventeen. Her mom used to always say that he was the picture image of her father, while Tess inherited her mother’s slight figure. 

Her father died of the plague about a year after Tess was born, and her mother had never stopped working since. Often she would bring home some odd job, like braiding ribbons for some rich family’s dresses, to keep Tess occupied and getting a few Notes for the task. Her brother ran errands for people in the gem sectors for money on the days that he wasn’t studying for his trial so that we would get some of his income. 

She remembered Thomas walking into the Stadium, but they never saw him walk out again. Someone else walked out, someone who didn’t know her and whose once laughing eyes became unforgiving and cruel. They gave them some money to thank them for contributing for the cause. Eventually that ran out though, and they began to eat less and less and work more and more. Eventually one day she was so hungry that she bought some bread with some money that she stole. The shopkeeper noticed that the Note was much too much for someone of her status to have so she ran back to her mother. 

When the officers came for Tess, her mother pushed her into the closet, and went to talk to the officers. Tess listened through the keyhole as her desperate mother tried to trade her for money. The officers took the deal and gave her a job in Commander Jameson’s home. Satisfied with the deal her mother took them to the closet and handed her daughter over without a tear. 

About a block away, Tess took the officer’s gun and killed the two officers. Staring open-mouthed at the scene before her she ran away as far as she could. Being a small girl of eleven at the time anticipating to have to take her trial soon she didn’t know where to go. 

She spent the next week in various places without many officers. One day she found a crumbling, abandoned building just off of a college campus that was once a library. The majority of the books were about medicine. Not having much to do, and being hungry, she turned to reading to stave off the hunger. Many of the works were quite complex, but what she did understand she enjoyed greatly. She learned about the basics of battle wound care. She doubted that she would ever need it, but it passed the time until she thought that they would have stopped looking for her. 

One day a tall girl walked into the building with a bag of food and assorted items. Tess watched as the girl emptied the bag. She then took books and put them in the bag with some if the items on top. Some of the food, a little bag of crackers, fell off the table so when the girl left, so Tess quickly grabbed and ate the crackers. They were slightly stale, but they could have been the finest food for that they were worth to her. She hoped that the girl wouldn’t notice that she had left the crackers. 

Later however, the girl returned. Fearing for the worst she hid in one of the empty bookcases. The girl looked around with her flashlight for something. The girl finally noticed her huddling there, and made her come out. Outside a few other people were waiting. They had her tied up and blindfolded. They walked quickly to a bar with a loud Chinese theme made from the layers of graffiti that caked the grimy walls. The tall girl looked eerie in the flickering lamplight with her shorn black hair and grimy goggles hanging from her neck. She called out to someone in the back that she had a potential recruit and would help out when she was done.

She sat Tess down and asked her if she wanted to help them. She described a wonderful land of prosperity that the Republic had once been, but Tess knew that the real world wasn’t like that. She explained how they were a group of freedom fighters called the Patriots and even if she didn’t join she wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about it. How, Tess wasn’t sure, but the look in the girl’s eye said she didn’t want to find out. The girl offered a life of food and shelter if Tess would help them destroy the Republic. Tempted by the offer Tess still rejected it knowing that there would be some loophole, just like with her brother. They said that he would get to visit them, but after his Trial he didn’t even seem to know them. After seeing that Tess knew that everything that sounds good at the time will always have a drawback.

They offered a bed and a meal for the night, though clearly sad that she hadn’t taken the offer. She nodded yes and took the bread and apple that they offered. The tall girl smiled kindly at Tess and motioned to a little room that looked like her mother’s closet. They stood there awhile clearly expecting her to go into the room. It was sparse except for the metal bed with a thin, worn grey mattress, which was considered luxurious theses days. A wool blanket sat folded neatly, the only womanly touch of the whole room. She sat awkwardly on the bed watching the people who called themselves Patriots. When the people turned she ran out into the night still clutching the food they had offered.

She ran in the shadows looking for someplace warm and sheltered for her to spend the night. She spotted an trash bin that she quickly jumped into. She saw two pairs of eyes blinking at her. Silently she offered them half of her bread and the apple to the blinking eyes that she learned belonged to a boy and his grandmother. She curled up in the corner and willed herself to sleep. In the middle of the night she heard footsteps. Immediately her companions fled. Thinking that it was a night patrol, she stayed there willing them to go away. Looking up, she spotted a boy hoping that he didn’t notice her from the notices she was sure had her face on them for killing two officers. The boy stepped toward her, with an obvious limp, so she scrambled out of the trash scraping her knees in the process. He walked, limping, towards Tess assuring her that he wouldn’t hurt her. He said he just wanted to join her, but Tess still kept her distance. 

He quietly asked if she lived nearby, so out of habit she nodded. Then remembering that she no longer could go back to her old house so she changed her nod to a brief shake quietly answering, “No” in hope to rectify her mistake.  
He offered to help her get home, and she said, “I don’t have a home.” realizing that she would never get to go home again. 

The boy asked looking sad, but not surprised, “You don’t? Where are your parents?” Not knowing what to say she just shook her head. The boy offered to help her clean up her knees and give her some food then she could do what she wished after that.  
He held out his hand, and Tess hesitated, but eventually took his hand. They spent the night behind a Pawn Shop with some chairs and sofas that had seen better days. The boy cleaned Tess’s knees with some obviously stolen alcohol. The pain was excruciating, but she stayed quiet, biting down hard on the rag the boy had given her, knowing that they wouldn’t want attention brought to them.

Before he went to sleep he offered for her to leave in the morning. Tess then huddled up awkwardly on the dilapidated couch and did her best to fall asleep. In the morning Tess didn’t know where to go so she figured that she would just stay with the boy.  
He reminded her of her brother with his gentle, but sad demeanor and hard exterior which came from living without food every day. During the day, Tess followed around the boy as he scavenged the trash cans. He asked her to leave several times during the day, but Tess wouldn’t. At one point he even yelled, but Tess still stayed not knowing what else to do. so she tried to cry quietly and just walked half a dozen paces behind him.

They spent another night in an alley in the Lake sector. The next morning, the boy was looking quite grief stricken that she was still there. He seemed less angry than yesterday, and more desperate. He tried pleading with her to leave him alone. However at the end of the day Tess’s resolve had only grown as she saw how resourceful the boy was. If she was going to survive she would need to ally herself with him. He was like her prodigal brother, the one from before the trial.  
That night, sitting around a fire that flickered half-heartedly, Tess spoke up and said, “My name is Tess”  
  
“Good to know”


End file.
